statement of intent

 My general intentions:

My intent for these magazine covers, contents pages and website is to discover ways to bring a digital platform to those from smaller countries away from the western side of the world. I want to give a voice to those who have not had the chance to show their culture, talent, fashion, lifestyle and want a chance to show the world themselves and their country who they represent. I will be focusing on all corners of the globe within my website and contents pages but will focus on two specific countries within my covers to clearly convey my ideology. 

covers:

My main concept for my covers is to be centered around culture and diversity throughout the world. Minority groups and countries are seen to get less exposure and publicity when compared to others and I would like to highlight other countries which may not be seen commonly in lifestyle magazines. Lifestyle magazines contain such a varied range of topics and one that I think lacks a little bit is the subcategory of culture. With the use of my covers and paying close attention to conventions, it will appeal to the 16–25-year-old lifestyle audience as well as appeal to others who resonate with these cultures which are being featured. This is because the audience of Hearst magazine have a mutual liking towards learning new things and being educated on new ideas and I think these two magazines will cater to the audience needs well. Following Hearst's ideology, these magazines will also be helping people grow and effect them in positive ways. This will be done by covering different topics such as cuisine, film and up-to-date news as well as fashion, which is the main topic being discussed in these magazines. The mise-en-scene is the most important part of the magazine to entice the audience. I will be paying close attention to specific details within both magazine covers as well as including authentic cultural aspects to keep the representations of both cultures accurate. I will also be spending time on the typography and the specific placements in order to not take away from the main image yet also convey the message that I would like to get across to the audience. Both of my covers will represent two different cultures (for these covers it will be Bangladesh and Ukraine). This will be done by including authentic and traditional clothing as well as using accurate representations of news which may be featured in those countries. As a result, this will attract my audience since these two publications will be unique compared to the rest of the media industry, which will make them intrigued to read this specific magazine. Personally, I view fashion as a unique and fun way to express yourself and when that is applied to culture, I think it can be interesting especially when the person reading the publication isn't familiar with the culture being discussed. I will be including articles and images of traditional clothing as well as different styles which can be seen in these cultures and trends that are currently going on. These two publications will be appropriate for the genre of lifestyle since they feature many distinct aspects of life but from a different point of view. Less exposed countries live their lives in many different and unique ways and when it is brought to the public in a lifestyles magazine it can help spark convocations and inspire others who may not have been aware of these new styles or cuisines to go and travel to these countries to experience it firsthand. 

Website:

My aim for the Hearst website is to create an interactive and fun experience for the audience which also helps convey Hearst's ideology and market their brand. This will be done by the use of pop-up subscription options for the viewer which will allow them to keep up to date with the new publications being released and I will also be featuring multiple images to help the audience create a stronger bond with the main celebrity which will be included in the issues. As well as this, interactive videos will also be included which will show the behind the scenes of the photoshoots which took place when doing the two first publications which will highlight the work that has gone behind it and will help the personalities shine through of the individuals who will be shown in the covers. The design used throughout the website will link with the two covers in order to create a link between them and help the audience recognize it as a Hearst website. Colour scheme and font is a key aspect of the website that I will be keeping a close eye on to make sure it all flows naturally and looks like the magazines are linked with this website. Marketing is a big aspect for magazine companies and social media is a new rising strategy that comes in many different platforms in order to reach out to your audience. I will be featuring Hearst's twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to a page on the website to enable the audience to follow Hearst and be updated with new publications and exclusive news which will not be available anywhere else. Social media is used by millions so it will affect the company positively when referring to sales of the first product. I will also be including many article pages on the website to further explain stories and events which I did not include in the two publications. Within these article pages will be a lot of images to link the articles to the publication as well as add visual elements to the stories to cater to the audience since if the stories include too much writing it could be seen as "boring". All of this will reflect the brand since it will convey their ideology by including a wide range of news and information which is favorable to the niche audience of fashion and culture. My website will also feature a main stories page at the beginning which will allow the audience to see up to date news without having to search throughout the whole website to find what they want to read. A minor addition to the website that I will be including is the order of everything included. The whole website will be shown in alphabetical order and in time or occurrence to enable the easiest navigation around the website. The further you read articles, the older they are and if you want to read a story on something specific, you can easily find it since everything is sorted and organized. This will appeal to the audience since when a website is seen to be complicated or too messy a lot of people will not want to stay and interact with the website so if those issues are not present in this Hearst website, then it is beneficial to the brand. 

Throughout my covers and website, I will be using similar colour schemes and logos as well as typography in order to create a brand identity and iconic "look" for the brand. Many well-known lifestyle brands such as Vogue and Elle have their unique logo, theme for their website as well as font that is used for all their articles. My covers and website will achieve the same effect by making sure the logo is the same colour and font throughout my work. This as a result will strongly build up familiarity with the brand across all media platforms as well as shops where the publications are available to buy.